Every pickup truck lover will never forget their first truck. The Ford Maverick offers an unbeatable price and efficient hybrid powertrain: it will be thousands of drivers’ first truck. The Fast Lane (TFL) Truck was pleasantly surprised by this mighty underdog and named the 2022 Ford Maverick its truck of the year.

The 2022 Ford Maverick is a unibody truck with an available hybrid engine

Countless haters will undoubtedly take a shot at the 2022 Ford Maverick. This compact pickup shares a unibody chassis with the new Ford Bronco and the Ford Escape SUV. And according to some, without a ladder frame, it’s not a truck.

To make matters worse, the Ford Maverick only has a 4.5-foot long bed. This micro bed is actually nearly as wide as it is long.

Finally, the base-model Ford Maverick is front-wheel-drive with a hybrid engine. That’s right, a hybrid truck. The Maverick’s standard drivetrain is a 2.5-liter gasoline hybrid with a CVT transmission. Ford offers a 2.0-liter turbocharged EcoBoost I4 with an eight-speed automatic and available 4WD as an option.

With an MSRP under $20K and a MPG above 40, the Maverick will be a gateway truck

Though the tiny Ford Maverick will raise some eyebrows, it is already building a fan base. It helps that the new truck’s stats are impossible to ignore.

Firstly, the Ford Maverick starts at just $19,995. That makes it one of the cheapest four-door trucks in the world.

In addition, the Maverick gets incredible fuel mileage. Ford predicted the hybrid Maverick would get 42 mpg on the highway. While the EPA has yet to rate the hybrid Maverick, TFL Truck tested it out and found the truck did even better than expected. The Maverick got 40.5 mpg in mixed driving conditions.

Finally, the Ford Maverick does a lot with a little. Every Ford Maverick is a four-door with room for five adults.

In addition, the truck’s 4.5-foot bed makes excellent use of space. Its a very tall bed with pockets for 2x4s and 2x6s so owners can build custom racks. Ford flattened the top of the fender wells for loading wide items: with its tailgate locked at a 45-degree angle, the Maverick can carry a stack of 4×8 sheets of plywood or drywall. That tailgate is even ready for tailgating, with built-in bottle openers.

TFL was surprised by the Ford Maverick

The team at TFL tested four all-new 2022 trucks: the 2022 Ford Maverick, 2022 Hyundai Santa Cruz, 2022 Nissan Frontier, and 2022 Toyota Tundra. The publication was not able to get several of the new 2022 trucks to test this year. This included the Ford F-150 Raptor, GMC Hummer EV truck, and the Rivian R1T.

The team at TFL Truck tested every 2022 truck in five categories: towing, fuel-efficiency, off-road, technology, and performance. The new Maverick surprised the reviewers in every category.

After careful deliberation, the TFL editors agreed that with rising truck prices, many new trucks cost much more than the average driver can afford. They applauded Ford for building an all-new vehicle that is affordable to buy and to operate.

The team found the Maverick could do all the truck duties they asked of it: towing a trailer and even carrying 1,300 pounds of logs. The Ford Maverick proved to be the little truck that could, and that’s how it won TFL’s 2022 truck of the year.